


The Customer is King

by Sabretoothgooselion



Series: Two Perspectives [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: And a good cup of tea, Both of them need a nap, Fire Lord Zuko, Gen, Kuei is an Awkward Platypus-Bear, Post-Canon, Pure gen fluff, The Jasmine Dragon (Avatar), The term 'mission' is used very loosely here, Undercover Missions, Undercover Monarchs, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:09:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24926725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sabretoothgooselion/pseuds/Sabretoothgooselion
Summary: Two absolute monarchs meet accidentally in a tea shop, and end up coming to an understanding.(Or: two perspectives on taking a break.)
Relationships: Kuei & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Two Perspectives [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803946
Comments: 49
Kudos: 495





	The Customer is King

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel to my other one-shot, Talking Peace. You in no way need to have read it to understand what's going on here, but it will make all the gazebo references make more sense.

Zuko had been Fire Lord for nine months, and he was _exhausted._ Making peace with other nations, taking care of his own people, clearing out his father’s loyalists while trying to look like he wasn’t upsetting the entire system of government so the nobility didn’t execute him, or _worse_ , execute a _coup..._ it was a lot.

He fell asleep in a meeting on de-armament. Everyone was nice enough to pretend they didn’t notice, but they _definitely did_.

After that, he made sure his assistant scheduled him for eight hours of sleeping per night. He tried to stick to it. Mostly he laid in a bed that was _too comfortable,_ staring at the ceiling and thinking of how much work he wasn’t getting done.

The whole thing came to a head over _rice_. He understood that the Minister of Agriculture for the Outerlying Islands didn’t live at the palace and had her own set of responsibilities. But he needed to meet with her before the harvest, and he was beginning to suspect she was _ducking him_.

Sure, the first meeting was scheduled at the start of the monsoon season, and there was indeed a monsoon. The rescheduling of the second meeting was his fault, because there was urgent trouble in the colonies. The third missed meeting... that could have been a scheduling error, but the lack of communication was troubling. He couldn’t _afford_ missteps.

Now they were getting dangerously close to planting season, and if the outer islands needed extra support, then preparations had to be put in place _yesterday._

And Minister Ichiko was _late_. He sat in his office, shuffling and reshuffling papers while he felt the sun travelling across the sky. All of this is to say that he was in a sleepless and agitated state when a middle-aged woman appeared in the doorway.

“Please sit,” he bade her, trying to skip the usual kowtowing and get to the point.

The woman paused. “My lord?”

He had _things to do_. He understood the rituals of respect his culture required, but right now, he didn’t have _time_ for them. “Sit.”

She sat, fidgeting uncomfortably. Zuko looked down at the past years’ yields, detailing the damages and famine caused by unpredictable weather and feeding soldiers in a seemingly-endless war. Would the end of the war mean more food? Less?

All he wanted was for her to make sense of it for him.

“Do you have the reports I requested for the rice yields on the outer islands, Minister?”

Her eyes widened. “My lord, I think there’s been a misunderstanding. . .”

Fury rose in his chest. He _tried_ to steady his breathing, but he was sick of wondering who he could trust, sick of half-truths from people who were either too lazy or too terrified to deliver him bad news.

“Give me the _truth_. What can we expect in crop production on the outlying islands?” He tried to use his _stern Fire Lord_ voice rarely, because it was yet another task to get his people to stop being terrified of him. But this was _important_.

“I. . . I don’t know, my Lord.”

He gave up on trying to steady his breathing. “You don’t _know?!”_ he shouted, rising from his desk. “Or you don’t _care?_ We are _six weeks_ from the planting season. People rely on these crops, and on _my support_ if these crops cannot yield what they need to. If _one single citizen_ of the Fire Nation starves due to your laziness or incompetence, know that I will hold you _personally responsible!”_

At his outburst, Minister Ichiko cowered away from him. Oh, _Agni_. She was crying. This was new. _Zuko_ had cried after meetings with ministers, and one _extremely embarrassing_ time _during_ a meeting with a minister, but they were seasoned politicians. They never cried.

That was the point that he noticed that she was holding a teapot. And wearing servants’ robes. And was almost certainly _not_ the Minister of Agriculture for the Outer Islands.

He deflated entirely. “Oh, no. No no no. Please don’t cry. I didn’t… I thought you were someone else!” His attempts at damage control devolved back into shouting, and the poor woman still looked _terrified_. “I’m not mad at you, even though it looked like I was really mad at you, you’re not in trouble at all! I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, I just. . . I just need a break. _”_

The poor server was _startled_ by a stream of panicked apologies from her Fire Lord, which at least interrupted the crying. He had no idea if this was better or worse, but eventually she found her voice again.

“May... May I be dismissed, my Lord?” Oh god. He scared her off. She was going to flee the palace, possibly the _country_ , because he was too exhausted to not be a _dick_.

“Yes, of course.” She plunked the teapot down on the table and _ran_ out of the room, turning to make a deep bow as she left and nearly falling backwards through the doorway.

Zuko put his forehead down on his desk for several minutes. When he raised his head, his eyes fell on the steaming pot of tea.

 _Agni’s rays_. He deserved to be thrown in a volcano. He had been a jerk to a _tea server_.

“Ming?” He called. His assistant popped in through the doorway, giving him a scrutinizing look that said she had heard _everything_.

“Yes, my Lord?”

“What’s on my schedule for the next few days?”

“Sitting for your royal portrait, my Lord.”

The royal portrait. Yet another thing that had been pushed back time and time again as Zuko spent his life putting out fires in a nation of people that were biologically inclined to start them.

Putting off the royal portrait wasn’t disastrous. It was just embarrassing. A black market for Fire Lord portraits had sprung up nationwide, consisting mostly of portraits of his father with the facial hair removed and a scar added on.

Thanks to Pu-On Tim and the _Agni-damned_ Ember Island Players, the scar was always on the wrong side.

“Postpone it again. And send a hawk to my uncle. And get a war balloon ready, but don’t tell anyone it’s for me.”

Maybe he was being an irresponsible Fire Lord. But he really, really needed a break.

**%%%%%**

It wasn’t necessarily that Kuei _couldn’t_ sleep. But tonight, or more accurately this morning, he _didn’t_ sleep. He’d caught up on correspondence, old meeting minutes, and proposed policy changes at a point where the moon hung bright in the sky. It just didn’t feel like _enough_ , which lead him back to a file he read so often that it occupied a permanent place on his bedside table.

The Fall of Ba Sing Se. Also known as that one time he discovered he had never _really_ been a king. Or alternatively, the first time he really _tried_ to be a king and was immediately hit with a coup led by a child who had barely hit puberty.

In Kuei’s mind, there had to be foreseeable, preventable factors that could be avoided, thereby keeping anything like that from ever happening again. The first two that came to mind were _don’t automatically trust your advisors_ and _be very afraid of teenagers._

His file contained every single record of the palace from that day, including notes of interviews conducted after the fact and personal observations by current and former members of the palace guard and the Dai Li. He had read and reread these accounts many times, but this time he wasn’t getting anything _new_.

As a scholar of history, Kuei knew that the most important lessons sometimes came from the most minute details. But the later he stayed up, the harder the details were to catch. They swam away from him, characters wobbling on the page as he tried to grasp miniature facts. It was as difficult as catching minnows with chopsticks.

Or, he assumed it was. If the 52nd Earth King _(long may he reign)_ had ever endeavored to catch a minnow with a pair of chopsticks, he would have discovered that it is actually a _harder_ task than trying to retain information after staying up all night reading. Not by much, but still.

As the morning light filtered in through his window, he took a sip of the cold tea on his bedside table and winced. It was... bracing, if not particularly tasty. It did at least focus him enough for one particular detail to catch his eye. The palace room reservation sheet, detailing which rooms needed to be prepared for what purposes at all moments of the day, keeping the palace (and by extension, the Earth Kingdom) from falling into chaos.

_Room reservation change: Earth King’s receiving room for merchant commoners (Upper Ring). Appointment originally misreserved by Undersecretary Boqin in Earth King’s receiving room for non-merchant commoners (Upper Ring). Prior reservation cancelled and new reservation established following correct filing of form 27B. See attached form 27B._

_Purpose: Earth King has personally invited proprietor of the Jasmine Dragon and server (nephew) for tea service._

_Requirements:_

  * _1 mid-sized table, merchant quality. Equipment division advised that this is a changed reservation_ _and duly warned to not just move the non-merchant table to the new room._
  * _Floor cushions, 1 royal quality, 2 merchant quality. Equipment division advised that Supervisory Approval has been granted under form 82A to classify server (nephew) as merchant due to last-minute reservation change as a result of misreservation by Undersecretary Boqin. See attached form 82A._



_Additional notes: Official complaint form 23C (failure to properly file nonemergency room reservation) against Undersecretary Boqin attached. See attached form 23C._

_Additional additional notes: Jasmine Dragon tea products rumored to be best in the city._

King Kuei had no recollection of inviting anyone for tea that day. He would have written that down in his diary for sure. He double-checked just in case, but his morning diary entry revealed no expectation of tea. He flipped back through the file, looking for any reference to tea, the Jasmine Dragon, its proprietor, or a server-nephew. There were several references to Undersecretary Boqin, but no other mentions of the Jasmine Dragon or its staff.

Until there was, tucked away in the account of a particularly terse agent of the Dai Li.

_The Princess told me to be ready to open the waterbender’s catacomb cell when she came back with the tea servers. She only came back with one. He was very young and shouted a lot. I opened the cell and they threw him in. I was redirected to guard the eastern wing from intrusion after that._

Kuei frowned. That must have been the server-nephew. He wondered if the proprietor had been killed. He wondered if anyone had ever bothered to let the server-nephew out. What if he was still lingering beneath the palace? What if he didn’t know the war was over?

These people were _his subjects_. He had a duty to find out.

He rang the little bell on his bedside table, and his personal secretary entered with a low bow.

“Yes, Your Majesty?”

“What do you know of the Jasmine Dragon?” he asked, frowning down at the page.

His secretary brightened. “Wonderful place, Your Majesty. Best tea in the city.”

“It’s still running?” Now there was a shock and a relief. The death toll of coup had been _substantial_. Perhaps nobody had really concerned themselves with a teamaker and his server-nephew in all the chaos.

“Absolutely, Your Majesty. It’s here in the Upper Ring right on Palace Avenue, and it’s _very_ popular. The oolong is my personal favorite.”

His gaze went down to the cold, strong brew on his bedside table. As a King, he really should know about everything that went on in city. He didn’t like the feeling of missing out.

“I’d certainly like to try it. And meet the staff.”

“I’ll reserve the Upper Ring Merchant Receiving Room and send the invitations promptly.” It really was a marvel how the palace staff managed to capitalize letters while speaking.

“No!” he shouted in alarm. Goodness, how must they feel? If Kuei was in their shoes, he would be _terrified_ to be invited to the palace after what happened last time. No wonder they had never filed the appropriate forms to reschedule an appointment interrupted by wrongful imprisonment once he took the throne. They probably never wanted to come back there again.

His secretary looked at him in surprise. “Your Majesty?”

“I’ll... I’ll go to them. Today.” This was about being a good ruler, he reasoned, and was of the utmost importance.

It had nothing to do with the fact that he desperately wanted a good cup of tea.

“Yes, Your Majesty. I’ll arrange for an honor guard, a security detail, and the shutdown of businesses along the procession route down Palace Avenue. We should be able to get you there by noon, Majesty.”

Kuei pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to ward off a throbbing headache. He knew he should try to leave the palace more. He _knew_ that there was a reason for the security measures. But the thought of all the businesses losing profit for the day, all of the people who loved that tea shop barred from coming by just because he wanted to visit. . .

One thing he had learned in his endeavors to go out more was that it was huge waste of resources every time a King went _anywhere_. No wonder he had a palace full of servants. It wasn’t just to protect _him_ ; it was to protect the city from having to shut down whenever he went about his day.

“Never mind, secretary. I’ve changed my mind.”

“Shall I send in your attendants to dress you, Majesty?”

And then there was that. He fended for himself for _months_ as a wanderer in his own Kingdom. Not particularly well, and thanks to the help of many generous strangers, but he had done so nonetheless.

“Not today, secretary. I’m not dissatisfied, but today... I’ll dress myself. Dismissed.”

His secretary sketched another low bow and left King Kuei alone in his room.

With great effort, he heaved himself out of his bed. Bosco looked up sleepily and made a noise that sounded like he was inquiring about breakfast.

“Soon, Bosco,” he reassured his friend. Bosco nudged his newest ball with his nose, sending it rolling across the floor to rest in front of the grand mirror in his dressing area.

Kuei followed the ball, regarding his reflection as he picked it up. Without his beads, without his robe, without his _hat_ , he didn’t look like a King. He looked like a tired young man in a fancy nightshirt who somehow managed to have both a receding hairline _and_ a serious case of bedhead.

In his reflection was his official portrait, hanging on the opposite wall. It occurred to Kuei that it was a reference point of sorts, showing what he should look like when he was ready for the day. He smiled wanly at the sheer _difference_. If someone saw him like this, they would never connect the man in the mirror with the King in the portrait.

A _plan_ began to form in his mind. If his commoner’s robes were still in the wardrobe, if he could sneak through the servant’s passages at just the right time...

He rolled the ball back to Bosco. “I’m terribly sorry, old friend. You’ll have to have breakfast by yourself today.”

Bosco let out a disappointed whuffle. Kuei’s heart clenched at the thought of leaving his companion behind, but the plan would be significantly harder with a bear in tow. He would just have to bring him next time.

He was going out _alone_ , and he wasn’t coming back until he’d tried the best tea in the city.

**%%%%%%**

Zuko arrived at his Uncle’s apartment in the middle of the night, full of apologies for the war balloon on his roof. Uncle was up waiting for him, fully armed with a big hug, a pot of tea, and yet another confusing proverb. He didn’t bother to think about what _a heart at rest sees a feast in everything_ meant.

Years later, as he held his infant daughter and watched the sun rise over Caldera, he would finally understand.

Uncle told him the next day at breakfast to take as much time as he needed doing whatever he pleased, which got him through a good half-hour of poking around the empty apartment and flicking through poetry scrolls before he went downstairs and put on an apron.

Perhaps he was reveling in a different identity, perhaps he was performing penance for his previous unkindness, or perhaps he simply liked the rhythm of it all. He didn’t reflect on his present state as he got lost in the mechanical actions of tea service – he took orders, delivered them to Uncle, delivered tea to tables, served the tea, took coins, made change, cleared tables, and repeated the process over again.

He used to be so _unhappy_ doing this, he thought as a noblewoman changed her order for the third time. Back at Pao’s he felt cheated of his honor, his throne, his _destiny_ , and he resented every last action and reaction in the teashop’s walls.

Now he had all of that and more, and he ran away from it to find his happiness here. It reminded him of those precious few days when the Jasmine Dragon first opened, when he had decided to throw it all away and be Li from the tea shop for the rest of his life.

He wondered how long it would take the world to find the Fire Lord if he decided to stay. Probably his tenuous peace would last until someone bothered to tell Aang. Or Sokka. Or Katara. Or Suki.

Toph probably wouldn’t sell him out, but she would definitely show up and blackmail him for free tea.

The problem with knowing so many people was that they knew him too.

At least nobody had recognized him yet. He panicked when a cocktail of ambassadors he remembered from the Four Nations Peace Summit came in, but one of them snapped their fingers and summoned him before he had a chance to flee to the back.

He took their orders, delivered the orders to Uncle, delivered the tea to the table, served their tea, took their coins, and gave them back their change without a single one of them giving him a second glance.

He glared at their backs as they left. Their departure signified the end of the morning rush, leaving the shop empty. That was just _offensive_. Relieving, but offensive. How did people get so used to being served that one person below their station looked like any other?

While clearing the table, he reflected on his disastrous fourth non-meeting with the Minister of Agriculture for the Outer Islands and came to the sinking feeling he already knew. He was still stewing in his thoughts when a shabbily dressed man entered the shop.

“Welcome!” he called out. “Grab a menu and have a seat wherever you like, I’ll be right with you!”

The man paused, looking around as if astonished. It took him a good minute to select a table and sit down.

Zuko remembered _that_ feeling clearly. As he took the dishes to the back and deposited them with Xiang the dishwasher, he remembered how the Upper Ring looked when he first moved there. He also remembered how the shopkeepers treated him and Uncle when they went to buy new clothes and fine furnishings to reflect their new station in life.

He may not be exempt from the bad habits of the ruling class, but he could always do his best to learn and be better. He could, at least, treat the man like any other customer in the Upper Ring.

“Welcome to the Jasmine Dragon,” he said as he approached the table, “my name is Li and I’ll be your server today. Our oolong and white jade blends are on special today. Do you have any questions about the menu?”

“Fire Lord Zuko?”

 _Oh. Oh no._ He had to cover for himself, and _fast_.

“No, I get that a lot.” He was, for the first and only time in his life, _grateful_ to Pu-On Tim and the Ember Island Players. “His scar is on the other side.”

**%%%%%%**

Navigating Ba Sing Se without an honor guard and a royal procession was much harder than King Kuei anticipated.

Theoretically, all he had to do was go out the front of the palace and make his way down Palace Avenue. It had never before occurred to him that servants did not go in and out the front door of the palace. Instead, the passages he had snuck through seeking the outer wall of the palace had deposited him in a side street of the Upper Ring that was wholly unfamiliar.

When he got far enough from his usual rooms, even the palace servants didn’t recognize him. At first, he tried to move stealthily through the streets. But as he passed more and more people who failed to point, or bow, or give any indication that a King walked among them, he began to realize that he was effectively invisible.

Effectively invisible and _incredibly lost_. The first person he asked for directions gave him a series of landmarks that he had no familiarity with, which ended up leading him to the monorail station. It didn’t help at all that to complete his disguise, he had taken off his glasses.

The guard at the train station told him to go back to the Lower Ring, which was even _more_ confusing because he _knew_ the Jasmine Dragon was on Palace Avenue and he had clearly arrived at the station _from_ the Upper Ring.

A station guard, he thought, ought to be more familiar with the layout of the city.

All of this is to say that it took the 52nd Earth King _(long may he reign)_ the better part of the morning to find the shop he’d set out to visit, even though it was just a few blocks from his front door. The downside of this was that he was parched and exhausted by the time he got there. The upside was that the shop was entirely empty except for him and the server.

The server he recognized.

The server he had spent an entire day with, making _very_ stilted conversation under a gilded gazebo. Who then proceeded to act like he was definitely _not_ the Fire Lord, and even _lie_ and say his _scar was on the wrong side_.

That was just _offensive_.

“It most certainly is not!” he shouted back.

The tea server of questionable monarchal status froze. “Have... have we met before?”

At that moment, Kuei realized that he was supposed to be _undercover_. In an attempt to cover his blunder, he harrumphed like he thought a disgruntled customer might (he had never been one before) and put on his glasses to read the menu.

His server’s good eye went wide. “ _King Kuei?_ ”

“Not so loud,” he whispered to the person he was now certain was Fire Lord Zuko. “I’m _undercover._ ”

“Oh, uh. So am I.”

The two absolute monarchs stared at each other in a moment of mutual confusion as the whole situation caught up to them.

There were a great many _rules_ that surrounded how two world leaders came to be in the same room talking to one another. The last time they met, it took _months_ to plan. There were announcements, processions, introductory speeches, and an extremely tacky gazebo specially constructed just for the two of them to talk.

There were no rules for a chance meeting of two absolute monarchs who happened to be undercover in the same tea shop on the same day. Except, of course, for the rules that governed tea shops everywhere. Kuei broke eye contact first, looking down at the menu.

“What... what do you recommend?”

“Personally, I like the jasmine.”

“A pot of that, uh, if you please.” The Fire Lord may be a tea server right now, but there was no reason to not be _polite_.

“I’ll—I’ll have that right out.” Fire Lord Zuko wrote down his order, despite the fact that it was a simple request made by the only customer in the shop. Kuei silently approved of such a thorough approach to documentation.

As his tea server slash fellow world leader retreated to the kitchen, it occurred to Kuei that perhaps not all factors were foreseeable.

**%%%%%%**

Zuko retreated towards the back, hands shaking. He realized that a random Earth Kingdom noble recognizing him was not the worst thing that could happen to him today. This was arguably a much more precarious situation.

The _Earth King_ was loose in the _tea shop_.

Uncle looked up from an experimental brew as he barged in, clutching the notepad like a lifeline.

“Is everything okay, Fire Lord Zuko?”

On the one hand, he could hide behind Uncle. Uncle would be delighted to serve a wild Earth King any variety of tea and would probably make him much happier than Zuko could.

On the other hand, ducking and running now could cause an _international incident_.

He had come to the Jasmine Dragon for the precise purpose of taking a break from situations where his mistakes could cause international incidents, famines, or general social unrest.

But life, as Uncle often said, happened wherever you were.

“Maybe?” his winced as his voice cracked a little. He was too _young_ for this, dammit. “Someone recognized me. Someone that I’ve met before.”

Uncle tilted his head inquisitively. “A friend?”

“I hope so.”

“Do you need my assistance, Nephew?”

He wanted to shout _yes_ and run away. But the risks inherent in that decision far outweighed the rewards. “Just a pot of jasmine, Uncle.”

He focused on his breathing as Uncle brewed the tea. Jasmine was something he could ordinarily do for himself just fine, but he didn’t trust his shaking hands or his temperature control right now.

When Uncle handed him the steaming teapot, he squared his shoulders and marched back out, determined to do his job.

Whichever one that was.

“Your jasmine, uh, sir.” Tea server. He was Li the tea server right now. Nobody else.

The Earth King looked at him. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what are you doing here?”

 _Running away from my responsibilities_ was one possible answer. _Trying and failing to cheat destiny_ was another.

“Serving tea,” was what came out. “What are _you_ doing here?”

Okay, he hadn’t meant to sound that defensive. But this was an _entirely unforeseeable situation_ , so he couldn’t be blamed for being a little on edge.

“Well. . . drinking tea.” The Earth King took a sip, as if to demonstrate. “Would... would you like to sit?”

Zuko looked around and saw no identifiable responsibilities that would allow him to refuse. He sat.

They stared at each other for several minutes in silence. One of them had to say something _eventually_. He had to pick a safe topic, and then put that topic onto the table where they could discuss it.

“How— how’s Bosco?”

The Earth King brightened. “He’s quite well, thank you for asking! He got a new ball yesterday and he’s very taken with it.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

The silence returned.

%%%%%%

The last time he sat and drank tea with the Fire Lord, it was awkward.

This time, it was _very awkward_.

There was no audience, no purpose, no _gazebo_ , and no fate of nations hanging in the balance. There were no conversation cards, and there was no point to any discussion they could have.

Kuei didn’t know if it was in spite of or because of these factors that he felt the overwhelming need to explain himself.

“When I wandered my kingdom as a stranger, I met a man who made beautiful vases.” There was no need for the Fire Lord to know he was quoting from his diary. Thinking off the top of his head was simply not possible right now. “He was self-taught! He told me he used to be a blacksmith because that’s what his parents were, but one day he just. . . decided to change. And I was _jealous_. I know it’s petty, being jealous of one of my subjects, but he just gets to _decide_ to be a potter, and I’m going to be a King for the rest of my life.”

His diary went on to expound on his fear that he was no good at his job and that would lead to him living a very short life, but there was no need for the Fire Lord to know that either.

The silence rolled on, and Kuei realized that really wasn’t much of an explanation. He took in a breath to try connecting his pottery envy to his undercover tea shop adventure at the exact moment when the Fire Lord finally spoke.

“I yelled at a servant.” Rubbing at his scar, the Fire Lord gazed down at the table. “I mistook her for one of my ministers. Then I started _berating_ when she couldn’t answer my questions about rice crops and I _made her cry_. I think... I think a better Fire Lord wouldn’t do something like that.”

Kuei wondered if his counterpart was also trying to explain something.

“You seem to be doing just fine so far. I mean, compared to—” He stopped talking and remembered what his advisors told him about _sensitive topics_.

Fire Lord Zuko frowned at the tabletop. “I was banished.”

When did _that_ happen? He was certain he would have remembered that report.

“To a tea shop?”

“I─ no. When I was young. Before I was the Fire Lord, I spent most of my time on a ship chasing... an impossible task.” _The Avatar_ didn’t need to be said. “I wasn’t trained the way a crown prince should be. There’s so much I didn’t learn. And I don’t learn very fast. My Uncle always told me a man needs his rest. I’m only just now starting to get that.”

Kuei understood that. Not the factual context, or why the Fire Lord was telling him any of this, but he understood the general feeling that was being conveyed.

The principle of Equivalent Exchange was what held his kingdom together. The basic idea was if something of value was given, something of equal value was owed, and that disparities in value based on use were what ethically created profit. This system allowed men to get rich without their riches being demanded in turn.

King Kuei was unaware that at that moment, a scholar at Ba Sing Se University was working on the first few paragraphs of what would be a very _long_ manifesto regarding the flawed nature of that exact principle. The scholar was similarly unaware that two hundred years later, that same manifesto would be the basis for violent political conflict that would completely reorder the country’s economic and political systems.

None of that pertains to this moment, though. In this moment, the principle of Equivalent Exchange demanded that a confession of the sort the Fire Lord gave him demanded a confession in kind.

“I was a child when I was crowned. I let my advisors do _everything_. I spent _twenty years_ oblivious to the fact that I wasn’t even running my own country. I feel like I’m going to be catching up for the rest of my life.”

Fire Lord Zuko pulled his hair out of its topknot, shaking it out. “I’ve been reading the chronicles of the old Fire Lords. I think... I wonder if they didn’t know what they were doing either. I wish they had bothered to write that part down.”

Kuei was delighted to learn that the Fire Lord was a scholar of history too.

“If it makes you feel any better, the other 51 Earth Kings didn’t do that either.”

**%%%%%**

It doesn’t make him feel any better. Why did _nobody_ write a guide to running a country? How did it come to be that none of their many dozens of predecessors thought _hey, someone else might take the throne after me and have this same problem. I’ll just jot down how I dealt with it so they don’t have to stress out too much!_

Kuei didn’t seem to know either. Zuko idly wondered what would happen if the world came to know that the rulers over the largest military in the world (him) and the largest population in the world (Kuei) had _no clue what they were doing_.

The Water Tribes would probably take over. They would probably take over _and_ do a better job than either of them.

He came to the very chilling realization that Sokka knew both of them _very well_ and could probably have them overthrown at any time. He resolved to send him whatever the newest, most expensive gadget in the Fire Nation was as soon as he got back in a gesture of goodwill.

He then came to the more chilling realization that he was still in the middle of a conversation, and that Kuei was the last person to say something, which meant _he_ had to say something now. And that maybe, just maybe, talking about yelling at servants hadn’t really gotten the point across as to why he was serving tea in Ba Sing Se instead of being Fire Lord right now.

“You asked me what I’m doing here... I used to work here. When I was on the run from the Fire Nation—well, really from my sister, I came here as a refugee.”

Kuei had _met_ his sister. He would have to understand the lengths any sane person would go to run from her.

“We were in the lower ring for a few months. Uncle and I started this shop, well really it was Uncle, and we were only at it for a few days before Azula came and... well.” He cringed at the memory of that day. He knew keeping himself accountable was important, but he couldn’t bring himself to recount the facts.

But he wanted Kuei to _know_... he didn’t know how much he really wanted him to know, but he wanted him to know how much he regretted that day. He wanted him to know that he wanted to make it _right_.

He wrung his hands, staring down at the tabletop. “I’m truly sorry for the role I played that day. I made a bad choice. One that I’m never going to make again. But when I came to the palace that day... I was just there to help Uncle serve tea.”

**%%%%%%**

The Fire Lord? In the lower ring for _months_? That wasn’t on any of the official documentation. It resolved a question that had been burning at the back of Kuei’s brain for _ages_.

It was a well-documented fact that Princess Azula snuck into the city disguised as a Kyoshi warrior with two other young women from the Fire Nation. It was similarly well-documented that the Dragon of the West had shown up with the Avatar.

It had _never_ been made clear to him where then-Prince Zuko had popped up from. He had considered the notion that he had also disguised himself as a Kyoshi warrior. He spent many nights combing the file, looking for evidence to support that theory. The numbers never added up. Three fake warriors whose movements were thoroughly accounted for. One Prince, emerging right as the Princess confronted the Avatar, seemingly out of _nowhere_.

It had made the Fire Lord seem as mysterious as the Blue Spirit. This side of the story made him look like he was just... _human_.

“I read about that. Well, not about most of that.” When he got back, he was going to need to make _so many updates_ to that file. “I’ve been trying to stay on top of everything, trying keep all of that from happening again. I’m in meetings all day, and trying to teach myself what I need to learn all night, and I read about the invitation─ did you know they never told me about the invitation?”

“Yeah. I mean, I figured. That was just Azula trying to get us to the palace.”

Kuei sagged in relief. At least the Fire Lord knew that he hadn’t personally contributed to the _scariest school-aged girl in the world_ finding him after he sought safety in Ba Sing Se.

“And well... I wanted to come here and try the tea. But it was so much─ I couldn’t─ it would have been such a _waste_.” Fire Lords had processions and honor guards too, right? He would surely understand that. “And here I am, and it’s just me anyways. Except, you understand, it’s not me. I’m undercover.”

The Fire Lord gave him a soft smile. One that reached his eyes. Kuei felt _seen_. Not seen in the way that people saw the King in the portrait. _Seen_ in the way he saw himself in the mirror.

If someone had told Kuei that morning that this would be the day Fire Lord Zuko saw him for _exactly who he was_ , he would have had a panic attack. He would not have snuck out for tea. He would have cried into Bosco’s fur and prepared himself for impending assassination.

In the Jasmine Dragon, surrounding by exotic ferns and the bright light of late morning, it didn’t seem scary at all.

“I know what you mean,” he said. “In a few days I’m going back to Caldera and I’m going to be the Fire Lord again. But right now, I’m just Li. All I have to do is serve tea.”

The Fire Lord didn’t just _see_. He understood. For the first time in his life, Kuei felt that there might be someone out there that knew what it was like to be a King too late.

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re doing an excellent job. As a tea server and as a Fire Lord.” Kuei was surprised when the words left his mouth, and even more surprised to find that he meant them.

Zuko’s whole face turned bright red. “You are too. I mean that. All of this... after the war... it was hard. A lot harder than I thought it would be. But it could have been worse. I’m glad it’s you on the throne.”

“I’m glad it’s you too.”

The bell rang, and a crowd of students bustled into the shop, interrupting their moment of mutual understanding. “I’m sorry, I have to─”

“Oh! Of course, go ahead—” He started fishing for his coin purse. After all, tea shop rules still applied.

Kuei stared down at his belt in horror. He had remembered how to _dress_ like a commoner. He had _utterly forgotten_ that in the world of normal people, money needed to be exchanged for goods and services.

Zuko seemed to pick up on his distress. “Don’t worry. It’s on the house.”

What a _relief_. He wouldn’t even know where to _begin_ locating letter-of-credit form 45G (royal expenses for consumer goods worth less than 50 gold pieces.)

As Li the Tea Server (nephew) rose and went to greet his newest batch of customers, he turned back to Kuei and smiled again. “I know you think you have to spend your whole life catching up, but. . . come back and see us again sometime.”

He would. The tea was excellent, and Bosco just _had_ to see this place.

**%%%%%%**

Zuko didn’t return to Ba Sing Se for six months. This time, he was flying in on _official business_. As the Four Nations began to blend and trade with one another, a cache of Fire Nation citizens had cropped up in the lower ring in a neighborhood informally known as Little Caldera.

Little Caldera was, naturally, on fire. Probably not literally _(anymore,)_ but figuratively. The unrest apparently sprang up from a combination of merchants charging unequal prices to citizens of different nations and accusations of unfair treatment by the city guards. Kuei sent him a hawk, he sent one back, and Aang as the overseer of harmony between nations got involved. _That_ lead to Zuko and the Avatar flying over the outer wall on Appa’s back a little after sundown.

Tomorrow morning, they would meet with the Earth King. Then they would meet with community organizers in Little Caldera, then the Earth Kingdom merchants and guards, and then everyone would repeat the cycle until they hopefully came to a solution that they could present at a public address in the evening.

Tonight, all they had to do was stop in and see Uncle.

Zuko knew that Uncle would drop everything he was doing to greet him, but past experience told him that would likely lead to the ruination of one or more delicate experimental brews. Followed by Uncle lamenting the loss of such brews. For the sake of the tea, they took a table and waited for Uncle to come to them.

A new server wearing large horn-rimmed glasses approached, brimming with a kind of excitement entirely foreign to tipped-wage customer service.

“Welcome to the Jasmine Dragon! My name is Li, and this evening I will be your personal ambassador through the magical world of tea! Our ginseng and cloudberry blends are on special today! How may I best guide you through the menu?”

Aang’s mouth dropped open. “ _King Ku-_ “

Zuko elbowed him _hard_. “We’ll take the jasmine.”

“An excellent choice, sir!”

“Zuko. That’s the _Earth King_.” Aang said in a sotto whisper.

It was, but Zuko wasn’t going to blow his cover. He and Kuei had an _understanding_.

“No, that’s Li. Kuei wears different glasses.”

Aang narrowed his eyes in suspicion and pointed an accusatory finger across the room. “If that’s _Li,_ then what’s Bosco doing here?”

There was indeed a large furry ball curled up in the corner. The bear raised his head at the sound of his name and met Zuko’s eyes. As if confirming the fact that there was nothing of interest happening, he yawned and went right back to sleep. 

Zuko looked back at Aang with a sly grin. He _could_ explain, but some things were best kept between monarchs.

“He’s taking a break.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Iroh, watching from the service window with tears of joy in his eyes*: oh SPIRITS he's making ANOTHER FRIEND this is beyond all of my wildest dreams!!!
> 
> *the dai li agent assigned to the Jasmine Dragon, watching from a nearby rooftop with tears of frustration in eyes*: SPIRITS why do we even HAVE form 88-I7 for clandestine meetings regarding matters of state (daytime, tea shop) if nobody's going to USE IT, i am going to KILL undersecretary boqin 
> 
> The "no his scar's on the other side" joke came directly from https://jellytartkingezran.tumblr.com/post/616782448334946304/ (with a special shout-out to AO3 user Qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnm for finding that one very specific Tumblr post for me!)
> 
> Anyways, these two goofs finally had a real heart-to-heart. See you next time, as always thanks for reading and please review!


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